A Handbook of Terrorism and Insurgency in Southeast Asia.

• Author: Smith, Paul J.
• Position: Book review

A Handbook of Terrorism and Insurgency in Southeast Asia. Edited by Andrew T.H. Tan. Glos.: Edward Elgar Press, 2007. Hardcover: 491pp.

Immediately after the 11 September 2001 attacks in the United States, Southeast Asia began to be characterized by various media reports as the "second front" in the American-led "war on terrorism". At a news conference held in 2007 in Washington, D.C., Brigadier General John Toolan, Principal Director for South and Southeast Asia, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, described Southeast Asia as a "crucial front in the long war" against violent extremism. Recent mass casualty attacks in the region, such as the 2002 Bali bombing (which killed more than 200 individuals) and the 2004 sinking of the MV Superferry 14 in the Philippines (which killed more than 100 individuals), have bolstered fears that terrorism has become entrenched within the region. However, the recent proliferation of terrorism-focused scholarly literature, public discussions and government warnings regarding terrorism in Southeast Asia has been criticized by some as excessively alarmist and focused exclusively and unjustifiably on Islamist-related terrorism. The recently-published Handbook of Terrorism and Insurgency in Southeast Asia seeks to address these concerns by providing a full-spectrum approach to terrorism and insurgency in the region.

This edited book is divided into six sections, each focusing on a particular theme of terrorism. Not only does the book cover Islamist terrorism--with extensively detailed chapters focusing on various jihadi groups--but it also highlights other non-religious terrorism (such as classic separatist insurgencies), and also includes an extensive analysis of terrorism emanating from the state itself, perhaps the most horrific form of terrorism in terms of scale of violence and numbers of individuals tortured and killed.

The first section of the book is written solely by the editor and provides a broad overview of terrorism in the region. Among other things, he argues that the persistence of terrorism and other substate violence in Southeast Asia can be attributed to "low levels of governance, ineffective institutions and a high level of corruption" (p. 17). The editor also proposes a useful four-class division model for analyzing different types of terrorist groups or terrorism-generating movements in the region, including (1) separatist insurgencies; (2) armed anti-government political opposition...